Fordham Miller Fare

pedal plow

this beats the pants off my ergonomic snow shovel.

entropy

it is the broken door to the dryer when you decide it would be labor-saving to send your daughter down to get the socks from the dryer herself.

it is the bag of frozen peas which collapses on itself and sends its contents on the kitchen floor not once, but twice.

it is the pair of used skates, purchased for 2.99 at the thrift shop 3 years ago, that had finally come into good use, only to be purloined by someone at public skating hour, while you were trying to find 25 ways to stay busy during february 'vacation.'

it is every book your daughter owns, deposited on a sum total of every square inch of your living space, every day.

it is what makes you say, 'sure,' when five minutes into the electrician's visit your kids ask you if they can do 'an experiment,' and when you brain checks in to what you actually agreed to, you find them behind the closed bathroom door with a mysterious concoction of desitin and fish tank chemicals.

it is the lost ski glove in Target, for god's sake, the cleanest store in the world, that is not in any aisle you traversed, nor in in the lost and found, even though you know you just lost it.

it is the only word you can use to describe the aftermath of two kids, one room, a closed door. and a bottle of baby powder.

it is the computer that f***s with you when you try to synthesize the thoughts that have been rattling about in your brain for the last week.

threat levels

biocontaminants: code yellow.

pestilent life forms: code orange.

chemical hazards: code green.

upon entering the domicile, please report any sore throat symptoms to the nurse on duty, reporting any allergies to medication, especially antibiotics, at that time.  kindly hand over your toothpaste, toothbrush, and dental floss, as well as any other dental appliances.  these shall be returned to you after a run through the sanitization cycle, but only on an as needed basis.  abandoned dental aids will be triple-bagged and sent to the incinerator.

please report any itching of the scalp to the nurse on duty.  surrender any hairbrushes, combs, headbands, pony tail holders, and stuffed animals.  these will be subject to appropriate sanitization procedures, and returned on an as needed basis.  hair checks will be conducted on an erractic enough schedule to ensure the survival of at least one reproducing adult.  therefore, please be prepared to repeat this process in 6-8 weeks.

there are currently no active chemical hazards, so you are free to enter and depart rooms as you please.  however, in the event of an unanticipated release of mercury, you will be asked to vacate the premises immediately until proper mercury cleanup protocol can be accomplished.

your patience is appreciated.

winning the battles. losing the war.

lice.

we successfully avoided them for 8 years.  then in september it started.  the 3rd day of school i found lice on both kids.  so i treated.  and combed.  and washed the sheets.  and banished the stuffed animals.  and combed.  and retreated.  and then we were done.

i initially treated with the over-the-counter formula - fun with neurotoxins! - but after my usual googling i decided that for all forthcoming treatments i would go with the decidedly less toxic nuvo protocol.  it goes like this: wash hair.  dry hair. apply 16 ounces of cetaphil gentle face cleanser to hair.  comb excess cetaphil cleanser out of hair.  blow dry hair.  all in all, it takes about an hour and a half to do maddy, about half that time to do morgan.

then, mid-way through november, maddy reminded me to check her hair, because lice had been recently identified in class again.  and right off the bat i found one.  augh!  so, i treated, and retreated, and combed, and examined.  this time around, not so many, and morgan didn't get it, and by the day before thanksgiving, i declared us yet again, lice free!  i swear, two months ago we were lice free.

tonight, maddy complained of her head itching.  she has a recent scar on her scalp from a bad fall she took (4 staples) so i thought maybe that was it.  but the scar also happens to be where the critters like to hang out most.  i couldn't find any of the critters themselves, but i found one egg, and then another.  at first i thought they were old stragglers from the earlier bouts. but then i found another.  and another.  and you know, where there's smoke....

so tomorrow i am in for it again.  washing, drying, shampooing, combing, blah blah blah.  i'm just praying nobody else gets 'em (so far it hasn't happened, but...knock on wood).

thoughts in no particular order

• green silly putty is hard to get out of bedsheets
• getting green silly putty out of bedsheets is not a productive use of my time
• i did not use WD-40 to get green silly putty out of the bedsheets
• remind me to tell you my patented method of getting silly putty out of bedsheets
• there should be a special place in hell for the makers of green silly putty.
• chocolate croissants are probably not the best way to end an exercise walk
• then again...  mmmmm.  chocolate croissants.
• beer: vacation in a bottle
• if i could skip sleeping for four days, i'm sure i could get all caught up
• should i buy another Tivo?  for the bedroom tv.  which is really small.
• news flash: morgan can dogpaddle, according to his dad.
• according to morgan, morgan cannot dogpaddle.
• i threw my back out in yoga
• yes, that's right, i threw my back out in yoga.  but i recovered by the end of class.
• that was the second time i threw my back out in yoga
• a garlic clove between the cheek and gum can help fend off a tooth ache
• a garlic clove between the cheek and gum can help fend off anybody who comes near you
• a garlic clove between the cheek and gum makes the gum sore
• when i make a sandwich with onions, morgan can smell the onions on my fingers three hours later
• my kids don't understand why i want them to leave me alone after 8 p.m.
• or, my kids don't care that i want them to leave me alone after 8 p.m.
• maddy nagged pestered drove me to within an inch of my sanity begging me to bring her heated thermapaq to her in bed after 8 p.m.
• i threw the thermapaq.  i am not proud.  neither are these folks.

where does he get this stuff?

Morgan:

Who was that guy, ‘Fred Bankelin’?
He wasn’t selected as president, but he was very helpful.

upstaged

i was walking home the other night, after our first significant snowfall, and came upon our neighbors, three young female undergraduates, trying to get their car unstuck from a small snowbank (you know the snow bank at the intersection of the driveway and the road that gets formed when the plow comes by?  yeah, that one).  i offered to help, and went to get some cardboard for under the tires, and some sand, and a shovel.  when i came back, i asked if they had tried rocking the car, or if they even knew how to rock the car (forward, then reverse, then forward, then reverse).  really they only had to get unstuck and then take a wider turn into the driveway, and i think they would have been fine.  i was all set to teach them a few things about how to get yourself out of sticky snow situations, when an SUV pulled up behind us, and a guy popped his head out the window and said, 'i've got a strap, you want me to pull you out?'  they were delighted, of course, and the kindess of strangers is certainly a good thing. but all my hopes of teaching these young women a little self-sufficiency went down the tubes.  ah well...

in other snow related news, i love my ergonomic shovel.  it took a little while to get used to, and it's no good for digging out a tire, but as a back saver goes, it's awesome.

sage advice. and don't take any wooden nickels, while you're at it.

From Morgan: You don't have to call it a clothes hamper, you can just call it a hamper, because you don't use it for anything but clothes.  Have you ever heard of a cookie hamper?  Well?  Have you?

From Madeleine: Steps if you spill milk a lot like you drop the gallon of milk. (1) Pick up the milk as soon as possible. (2) Get some rags. (3) Mop up the floor. (4) Get back to whatever you were doing. (5) Make a list like this and give it to a parent.

This (Wretched) Old House

It is daunting being a homeowner.  It is further daunting still being a homeowner of a 150 year old house.  And it is most daunting of all being a landlord to an apartment which is half of a 150 year old house.

Actually, most of that isn't true.  Because mostly, I just ignore the seventeen million things around my house that need fixing that I will never get around to.  Or least not until the kids are in college.  Which is why we've had a closet door collecting dust in our garage for 7 years, and a porch in need of refinishing for 4 years, and the garage window that's been dangling precipitiously out of it's frame for...well, ever since we moved in.

But I have tenants, and they, rightly so, do not have to ignore what is wrong with their/my house.

So, it was pointed out to me that it might be slightly inconvenient to have a thermostat located in one's bedroom when two other occupants of the same apartment might need to tip the heat up a bit at 3 or 4 in the (cold New England) morning.  And so that was how I came to add 'relocate a thermostat to opposite side of wall' to my skill set.

I was all ready to hand the job over to the plumber, but the fact that the plumber usually takes several months to make it over here (by which time it will presumably not be winter), combined with some advice I got about how EASY it would be for me to do myself, led me to give it a shot.  No problem, this person said, all you gotta do is drill a hole in the other side of the wall, and pull the wires through.  But after I got through taking off all the thermostat-y parts, this is what I had to contend with.

It looked sorta like the box for an outlet or a light switch, but it wasn't (I don't think!), and it had me very confused.  Where were the tiny, easy to maniuplate, color-coded wires I was told to expect?  This all looked so...menacing.  I was filled with trepedation...but after 10 minutes of mumbling to myself (and realizing that if I gave up now, I'd still have to put everything back together again AND pay the plumber to do it the right way), I decided to ditch the box, pull the wires through, set everything up again, and hope for the best.  And it worked!  I think!  And I feel just the teensiest bit proud of myself, and just the tiniest bit less resentful of my wretched old house.

And what did my daughter tell me this evening, after my small but significant handywoman victory?  That she wants to be a cheerleader.  And when can she have a credit card.*

*Please blame the book 'The Accidental Cheerleader' for these comments.  And please note that I refused to BUY this book from the Scholastic flyer sent home from school, but the darn thing showed up at a recent book swap and I missed my chance to make it disappear.

thanksgiving question

i know there probably aren't many of you out there reading this anymore, but for those that remain, and that can successfully make a pie crust from scratch, answer me this:  why do i always need more (much more) than the called for amount of water to make the dough come together.

i made an apple pie this thanksgiving, but because i was not in my own kitchen, and did not haul my food processor from home, i had to resort to the truly by hand method for crust making.  usually i use the food processor, fitted with the sharp blade, to cut in the butter AND incorporate the liquid.  i never had really successful pie crusts until i tried this method.  i know that the secret to a crust that isn't tough is to handle the dough as little as possible, use very cold butter and water, and let the dough set up in the fridge for a few hours before rolling it out.  but when i add liquid to the flour/butter mixture, it always takes WAY more than is called for.  so this time, without my trusty cuisinart to rely on, i had to mix in that water by hand, a tablespoon at a time, as the recipe directed me to, and i ended up with a pie dough that was less than ideal.  but even with the cuisinart, i always have to add lots more water to get the dough to form a mass.  any ideas, ye cooks out there?

we had some surpise snow in lake placid on friday.  i kept checking the weather via the internet, and the forecast just got worse and worse and worse.  from snow...then to wintry mix...into sleet/rain...into just plain rain.  but the altitude and that artic blast must have done something, because on friday morning, we not only awoke to snow, but it snowed pretty much all day.  we spent a little bit of time walking around town with our friends jimmy and rhonda, and their two boys, who had arrived mid-day thursday.  then in the afternoon, while rhonda cooked a fabulous turkey pot pie (with, i have to say, a fantastic crust courtesy of their CSA farm store), jimmy and i took the kids to the adjacent golf course for some sledding.  it was a little dicey, as the sledding hill led pretty much straight into the road, save for a few trees that were just as menacing.  and the ground beneath the snow was the icy build up that had been coming down the two previous days.  but it was great to be sledding so early in the season, and about halfway into our adventure, the snow started coming down in earnest, and we had a view of the mountains and that quiet blanket of sound that comes when the snow falls, and it was really just ideal.